


multidimensional

by Hoothootmotherf_ckers



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: And Other Questions, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack, Families of Choice, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, canon compliant shenanigans, what did normal people think of the weird shit happening around them, who let kravitz go to kepler, why do I write angst when I'm sick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-05-19 03:11:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19348333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoothootmotherf_ckers/pseuds/Hoothootmotherf_ckers
Summary: A collection of short, disconnected missing scenes, hypotheticals, and character studies. Duck Newton meets Kravitz. Magnus takes a hit. The Moonbase has some quirks.





	1. how to make friends and violate the migratory bird treaty act of 1918

“Look, kid-“

“I am over seven hundred years old, I am not a _kid!_ ” Kravitz sputters. The man in front of him just sighs and rubs his face.

“Fuck, man, you a Sylph then?” Duck asks, immediately more tired than he should be. It’s only Tuesday.

Seeming baffled, the oddly goth dude with a _goddamn scythe_ asks, “What- what the fuck is a Sylph?” He has a terrible, obviously fake British accent now and yeah, that dude’s not from around here.

“Look, you don’t have to lie to me,” Duck says. “You’re some kind of magic, you’re definitely not a local, so there’s a few options from here on out.”

“Look, I’m just here for my job,” Kravitz pleads, unsure how a simple mission has ended up in this situation. “I just enforce the laws of-“

“Oh, _that’s_ rich, coming from you,” Duck scoffs. “You’re not one to talk about enforcing laws.”

“Excuse me?” Kravitz squawks, angry. “I have been enforcing her Majesty’s laws for _centuries_ longer than you have been alive, what gives you the power to prevent the passage of justice-“

“Okay, look,” Duck says, sighing. “First off, I don’t know who the fuck your queen is, but this is a democracy, constitutional republic and shit, so this is so not your jurisdiction. And second, as I’m a federal fucking officer, this _is_ mine. And you’re breaking like, six different laws, like first off, that scythe-“

“Okay, wait one second,” Kravitz says, brandishing said scythe and letting his face flash skeletal. Duck doesn’t react. “You have a sword!”

”And I would _very_ much like to acquaint myself,” Beacon purrs, “Because if _Duck Newton_ would _let_ me, I could end this altercation _very quickly._ ”

“Yep, nope, not doing that,” Duck says abruptly. “Anyway, yes, I have a sword, I’m a Ranger, I am allowed, but since you just pulled that scythe out of fucking nowhere I’m counting that as a concealed weapon. If you were a Sylph, I’d hand you over to Mama for this, but as you say you’re not, that’s a federal offense.”

Kravitz watches the rambling with wide eyes. “Who the fuck is Mama?”

Duck snaps his mouth shut. “Yeah, not a Sylph, okay, you don’t get to know that.”

“What the FUCK is a Sylph?” Kravitz almost yells.

“The short version is a magical being from a different plane,” Duck states flatly.

“Oh, well- er, I am that,” Kravitz mutters. “But I think it’s a _different_ different plane.”

“Awesome, great, I’m going to get back to arresting you if you’re not a Sylph,” Duck says brightly. “Second point, where’d you get those feathers? What bird?”

“What, these?” Kravitz says, fluffing up his cape of feathers, the symbol of his authority under the Queen. “They’re fucking ravens, of course they are, why does that-“

“Awesome, great, I’m going to need to see a whole shit ton of permits because that looks like a lot of ravens went into that, and _that_ would be a violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918,” Duck says, holding out an arm. “Now, hand it over.”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Kravitz says, staring. “I’m not giving you my- why would, I’m not even- oh, fuck this!” he shouts, fake accent slipping. “One vampire is not fucking worth this, the Queen can send the fucking necromancer or something, I am done!”

And with a wave of his scythe, Kravitz rips a swirling black portal in the air and sprints through it, leaving a cloud of raven feathers in his wake.

Duck sighs, crouching down to collect the feathers. As he stands, he unclips his radio.

“Hey, Mama?” he says into it. “How many other planets like Sylvain are there?”


	2. rushing in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THB get in a fight, as they do. Magnus rushes in. Magnus gets hurt. Taako _isn't having this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: canon typical violence and injury.

They’re on some boring, desolate dirt road, between towns that may have heard a friend say something maybe about a Relic. Usually, this is Seeker work - after all, there’s likely not anything in these towns to Reclaim. But Angus is working on a possibly real lead, and Taako was getting restless. Well, they all were, really - Merle started talking to the plants, and Magnus has been leaving piles of wooden animals in corners and tracking larger piles of wood shavings through the Bureau. Taako’s just the one who noticed that and started loudly complaining.

So now, here they are, scuffing their feet in the dust as they plod along through forests and fields, a warm sunset lighting their way. Or Taako is, anyway - Magnus looks positively delighted to be outdoors, and Merle is admiring the foliage. Taako doesn’t _do_ hiking, okay.

Neither does Merle, apparently, because he’s trailing behind. “Hey, big guy!” he shouts. “Dunno if you noticed, but your legs are as long as my _entire Pan-damned body_ , so mind slowing it down a bit?”

Taako should’ve been paying closer attention, should’ve listened, his passive perception is too high for this, damn it. But instead, he turns back, ready to heckle Merle as he usually would. And as he takes a breath to yell, something _shoves_ him.

Taako falls, skidding in the dirt. His indignance and outrage only lasts a moment, though, as Magnus’s frantic shout of “ _FUCK!_ Gnoll ambush!” has him scrabbling to his feet, Umbra Staff out.

They’re surrounded. Four gnolls, bloody teeth bared and crude blades drawn, stalk toward them from the hedges lining the road. One’s already hurt, limping - Taako assumes Magnus’s bloodied axe is the reason why. That push must have been Magnus, too; as a protection fighter, he tends to do that. Normally, Taako finds it annoying, but today, as he looks at the injured gnoll’s jagged and rusty shortsword, he’s okay with it.

But there’s no time left to think, as things escalate into an all-out brawl. Merle stands firm in the center, his Guardian of Faith knocking back any gnoll that gets too close, and Taako weaves in and out of the fray blasting Magic Missiles at any that pauses for even a second. But the real MVP of the fight, as always, is Magnus, barreling through the canine beasts with his battle-axe, blood spraying up in wild arcs.

It’s over in moments. Two gnolls lie dead, and the two surviving cut their losses and make a break for it, scrambling off into the underbrush. Taako sends a halfhearted Scorching Ray after them, and then sits down, yelling, “YEAH! That’s what you GET!”

He’s crouching down to loot the bodies when he hears a groan behind him. “Fucking… assholes… tryna… make me… hate… dogs,” Magnus mutters, and then he collapses to the ground, unconscious.

“Magnus? SHIT!” Taako rushes over to him, trying to see what’s wrong. He’d thought things had gone okay- one the fight started in earnest, Taako hadn’t seen the gnolls get in a single hit. But the dark, tacky blood oozing from Magnus’s side, sticking his ripped shirt to him, would say otherwise. “MERLE!”

Merle’s already there, muttering curses as his hands start to glow green and he starts pushing healing energy into the still seeping wound. Taako stands and paces. “What the fuck, when did he get hit, this is such bullshit, _shit!_ ” He kicks a rock, trying not to look at the red patches in the dust.

“Man, I don’t know!” Merle says. “I thought I saw it all, once he knocked you down and shit popped off nothing touched him!”

Taako freezes. “Once he- FUCK!” He drops down next to Magnus’s head. “Hey asshole! Wake up so I can yell at you!”

Surprisingly, Magnus does actually crack an eye open at that. “D’ I hav’ta?” he slurs. “M’side hurts.”

“Yeah, I bet it does, you absolute dipshit,” Taako says, voice shaking. “You asshole, you shoved me out of the way!”

Magnus looks confused. “Yeah? Th’t’s what… I do.”

“It shouldn’t be!” Taako shrieks. “The fuck! Protecting us should not mean getting yourself _fucking STABBED!_ ”

Merle’s glowing hands are starting to dim, and he looks tired. “Hey yeah, wait a sec,” he jokes, going for lighthearted and not quite making it. “Let’s go for solutions that involve no stabbing, ‘kay? Makes my job a lot easier.”

Magnus almost smiles. “N’t like I _try_ to get hit,” he says. Taako doesn’t smile back.

“Sure, true, but like. My man,” he mutters. “You don’t exactly try hard to _not_ get hit.”

Magnus shrugs, wincing as it pulls at his side. Merle, now wiping away the remaining blood, pokes him admonishingly. “Stop making my job harder!”

Merle looks up at Taako. “He’s fixed, but he’s not hiking further today. Let’s make camp.” Taako sighs.

“Hey, Magnus?” he says, unrolling a bedroll. Magnus squints at him.

“What?”

“Yeah, okay, you like, care about us. I get that, okay,” Taako says, voice cracking just a bit. “But like. Ugh, don’t make me say it,” he mutters. “We care about you too, capisce? We can take a few hits. Don’t… don’t take stupid risks, okay?”

There’s silence for a few moments, and Taako finishes setting up camp, Merle bedding down on one side of Magnus and Taako on the other. It seems like Magnus has nodded off already, the healing too much, so Taako curls up a little closer than he normally world. He’s cold, okay? That’s all this is.

But after a moment, Magnus rolls into him, bumping shoulders. “Okay,” he says, softly. Taako almost smiles, a little. It’s a start.

And with that, all three drift off into an exhausted sleep.


	3. dogs on the moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unstoppable force meets immovable object: Magnus Burnsides vs. No Dogs On The Moon.

The first time, it’s not even subtle. Magnus and Avi go down to Goldcliff for a simple shopping trip. Magnus and Avi come back to the moon with groceries and a golden retriever. Madam Director pinches the bridge of her nose and has the feeling that this is about to be happening much, much more.

“Hey, Magnus?” she says, politely. “Remember the rule?”

“Don’t take food from Robbie? There’s about a 50% chance whatever you learn from Carey could get you arrested? Wear your seatbelt?” he rattles off, pointedly not looking at the dog.

It licks his hand.

“No, the bit about _dogs on the moon will fall off_ ,” she says. “Avi? Whose dog is this?”

Magnus perks up. “Well now-“

“Nope, okay, rephrasing the question,” she says quickly. “Avi, where did you get this dog?”

Avi shrugs, looking torn between terror and giggling. “There was a shelter next to the grocery store, I don’t know _why_ , that seems like a zoning issue, but one minute I’m looking at the Fantasy Cheerios and the next, well,” he shrugs. “Dog.”

Yep, nose pinch again. “Magnus, did the shelter seem to be caring for the dogs properly? Did they have enough space, enough employees, etcetera?” The dog is now licking her hand. She does not respond, even though it is a very good dog that deserves all the head scritches. She can’t show Magnus any signs of weakness.

Magnus deflates. “Well, yeah, it’s a good shelter…”

The Director softens her voice. “Okay, then here’s what we’ll do. Take the dog back, get the shelter’s contact info, I’ll get Brad to muck with your schedule so you have time to volunteer there, and we’ll send some money their way. We just- no dogs on the moon, okay?”

Magnus is clearly dejected, but he returns the dog. And every week, Avi takes him down to Goldcliff, and every week he returns with updates on how the dog - newly named Strawberry - is doing. It’s enough.

For a while.

“Magnus!”

“Hiiii, Director,” Magnus says with a forced smile, holding his jacket shut in a way that makes it abundantly clear that something is tucked inside it. Something moving.

She sighs. Again. “Magnus, open your jacket.”

“Wow, that’s rude, I’m just cold, you know, those bubbles aren’t very insulated-“ His attempt at subterfuge is foiled rapidly by the emergence of a tiny head, all big eyes and pointy ears, popping out of his chest like an alien.

“That’s a dog.”

“I mean, it’s a Chihuahua, so it’s like, an eighth of a dog, really,” Magnus rambles. “Maybe a sixth, if you’re being generous, but this dog is real small, it’s-“

“Still a dog?”

“Yeah.” His face falls. “Still no?”

The Director smiles sadly. “Still no. It’s just not safe, Magnus.”

He scuffs his feet. “Yeah, I know. But can’t fault a guy of trying.”

“I know, Magnus.”

Of course, it doesn’t stop there.

“Magnus, a hairless dog is still a dog. Also, please get that dog some clothes!”

“Magnus, I appreciate your carpentry skills, but a very tiny fence around the base will not stop the falling issues.”

“Magnus, I know how polymorph works, at this point any animal you bring back has a mandatory observation period.”

“Magnus, that’s a cat. That’s a very weird cat.”

“No direwolves on the moon either, what the fuck, Magnus, those will eat us and then STILL run off the dang thing!”

And so it continues. A new attempt every few months, followed by a trip and a hefty donation to the Goldcliff shelter. At least they’re doing quite well, with this new source of regular funds.

Or it goes, until Wonderland. Until the memories. Until Story and Song. Until after.

When she comes out of her office a few weeks after… everything, balancing stacks of paperwork, Magnus is outside. He’s sitting at the edge of the moon base, legs dangling over the edge, staring at the clouds.

She joins him, and they sit there for a minute, silent. After a bit, Magnus sort of leans against her, and she leans back.

“So,” he asks, “What comes next?”

She shrugs. “Well, paperwork, for me, for a while. There’s some… restructuring to do. How about you?”

She feels him sigh. “Still working that out. Might stay up here for a bit, lend a hand while things settle.”

“Well, in that case,” and she rustles through her papers, trying to keep her tone even, “I have an idea for some changes around here, if you wouldn’t mind helping out.”

She hands him the sheet of paper, and she feels him stiffen up as he looks it over. It’s not a letter. It’s a collage of drawings, one of every dog (or cat) that Magnus has tried to bargain, smuggle, or otherwise finagle onto the moon. And at the bottom, in simple letters, it says: IOU.

Magnus throws his arms around Lucretia, and she smiles. “Maybe it’s time for some dogs on the moon.”


	4. snakes that aren’t snakes, moons that aren’t moons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did people rationalize the existence of Faerun's second moon? With a lot of confusion, mostly.

The human brain is very good at seeing snakes. Statistically, it is much less dangerous to think there is a snake where there is no snake, than to think there is no snake where there is a snake. One leads to a slight shock, the other to teeth in your leg. And having teeth in your leg is No Good.

Similarly, the Faerûnian mind is very good at seeing moons.

There are two moons, of course, there always have been. No one can remember a time when there weren’t, they must be as old as the planet itself, formed of the same matter. And yet… there are still some discrepancies. Children’s tales, nursery rhymes, speak of the minotaur jumping over the moon, singular. Well, that makes sense, sure - after all, it’s a story for children, they can oversimplify. Jumping over two moons would be unnecessarily complicated.

Other factors are more confusing, but surely have simple explanations. Faerûn may not be a planet with space travel quite yet, but they do have a vested interest in the subject. As a result, they have decades upon centuries worth of equations, charts, diagrams mapping the movements of the stars and sky. They map the moon - singular. For not a single sheaf of paper documents the second, smaller moon.

But this must be an error, or must be incomplete. See, that smudge, there - that must be where they meant to add the moon, before they clearly ran out of time. And this equation, mapping the gravitational pull of Faerûn’s satellites - well, it’s old, it’s understandable that they would have made some errors. We’ll just fix that right up, correct their math to account for both moons. And well, okay, these new equations don’t quite work, but it’s early days yet. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all - you can’t expect to completely discern the workings of the universe in an afternoon. Or ten. Or hundreds upon hundreds of afternoons of scrapped paper and snapped pencils and bafflement.

And then, of course, there’s the strangest and simplest emptiness. The larger moon, Selûne, is named for the goddess who holds the moon’s domain. For Faerûn is a world of magic, a place where myths hold real truths - there is a deity for everything, from the smallest grain of sand to the largest celestial body. There are thousands of stories about Selûne, hundreds of clerics and temples and shrines. She’s well loved, even by a deity’s standards. And she’s involved in life down on Faerûn, not restricted to her satellite home. She helps, she heals. She’s real.

And yet. The second moon, somehow, has no deity. It doesn’t even have a name. Nature abhors a vacuum, but this moon stays lonely and unclaimed anyway.

But Faerûnians ignore that, gloss over it, brush past. Of course there is a second moon. Of course it has always been there. Why fail to see a snake when one is staring at you, drifting just out of reach?

And so it goes, until one day there is music, and then memory. And children, storytellers, astronomers, clerics, and the gods themselves look up, faces lit with wonder, shock, the thrill of someone whose equations are finally snapping into place and the fury of someone who must now rewrite their entire thesis. It never was a moon, there never was a snake - just something that looked quite like one, miles and miles above.

Nature abhors a vacuum, but the second moon - Lucretia’s moon - was never truly empty.


	5. Cladistic Organization of the Undead Species of Faerun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I really don't have an explanation for this one other than hey isn't it fun to use academic skills for dnd podcast fanfiction?

**Cladistic Organization of the Undead Species of Faerun**

Dr. Barry J. Bluejeans and Dr. Lup [REDACTED]

_Abstract:_

Faerun is home to a wide variety of living, sentient species, and nearly as many varieties of sentient undead beings, all with complex taxonomic identity and legal status. It has been proposed by a number of scientists, most specifically in Miller (18 PSS), that liches, vampires, ghosts, and revenants, as well as less common instances of undead humanoids, should be categorized as subspecies of the being’s given species while alive (ex. _Homo sapiens vampirensis_ and _Draco bipedalis reveni._ ) However, this broad grouping is imprecise and inaccurate. This paper intends to analyze the connection of physical form to taxonomic identity, using a detailed examination of archaeological data, genetic analysis when available, and necromantic journal review and practical research. Archaeological review was useful in the examination of revenants, zombies, and other beings that leave physical remains, but was found lacking in the investigation of liches and non-corporeal undead. Genetic profiles of undead beings were analyzed in comparison to their nearest living relatives or descendants in order to determine the presence of any consistent genetic variation. Finally, highly controlled experiments in a laboratory setting analyzing the physiology and genetics of small mammals prior to conversion into various forms of undead was highly effective, but not recommended for reproduction and as such should not be subjected to peer review (Footnote 1). Ultimately, research determined that certain subsets of undead being should be entirely reclassified from the Miller system. Beings with connection to the physical form and genetic identity of their former body and living counterparts (revenants, vampires, zombies, etc.) still should be considered as subspecies of the living species of origin. However, in species where the original physical form is completely lost or disconnected from the extant form (ghosts, liches, etc.) this is no longer a valid classification. Instead, these beings belong in a vastly different organizational clade, and, while determination of this taxa’s specific nomenclature and diversion from a living ancestor goes beyond the scope of this paper, may necessitate the creation of an entirely new kingdom, if not domain, consisting of of non-corporeal undead beings.

**Author's Note:**

> All chapters originally posted to my tumblr, [@hoothootmotherf-ckers](https://hoothootmotherf-ckers.tumblr.com/)


End file.
